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What's So Wrong With Wheat?

It's become one of the most controversial foods on the planet for its notorious protein—gluten—which some say causes everything from obesity to depression. SELF investigates the truth (and consequences) behind the claims.

In the spring of 2014, Sheela Pai stopped eating wheat. The 35-year-old New York City attorney had spent years suffering from vague and seemingly unrelated symptoms, including fatigue, breakouts, swelling and a ravenous hunger that hit her an hour or so after certain meals. Eventually, she wondered if there might be a connection between these symptoms and her diet. After several unsuccessful experiments with other foods, she decided to try cutting out wheat. When she did, it changed her life.

"I'd lost weight in the past, but this was different," Pai explains. "The pounds peeled off, and for the first time, I stopped experiencing 3 p.m. energy crashes and began to sleep soundly. My skin cleared up. My body felt less inflamed, and I actually saw the results of all my exercise." Her mood brightened. Friends said she seemed like a different person.

Pai hadn't been tested or diagnosed by a doctor with any wheat-related disease, but she noticed that whenever she indulged in more than a few wheat-based foods a week, her symptoms returned. Today, she's still wheat-free and intends to make the change permanent. "You don't know how good you can feel," she says, "until you feel it."

Pai is hardly alone in finding salvation in a wheat-free diet. Today in America—where we sing patriotic songs about our amber waves of grain and consume products that contain wheat at nearly every meal—we're in the midst of a rebellion against wheat and, more specifically, a wheat-derived protein called gluten. This revolution was largely influenced by two enormously successful books—William Davis's 2011 Wheat Belly, which has sold more than a million copies, and David Perlmutter's 2013 best seller, Grain Brain. The authors' claims have been seized on by everyone from wellness experts to food bloggers and have convinced many people that wheat, our most staple and beloved food, is doing us harm.

Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow, Miley Cyrus and Russell Crowe have extolled their experiences going gluten-free, but adherents reach far beyond the rich and famous. According to recent market research, an estimated 30 percent of Americans claim to be trying to reduce or cut gluten from their diets, and 63 percent believe that a gluten-free diet can improve physical or mental health. The backlash against gluten has become so mainstream that even regular supermarkets now stock a wide selection of gluten- and wheat-free products, including breads, pastas, pretzels, cakes, soups and snack bars. The Girl Scouts sell gluten-free cookies. Even Hooters has a gluten-free menu. In 2014, the gluten-free market in America brought in an estimated $8.8 billion in sales.

If you believe the claims of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain, we should all harbor suspicion toward sandwiches. Perlmutter, M.D., a neurologist, claims to have "undeniably conclusive" evidence that, thanks in large part to gluten, "modern grains are silently destroying your brain." Davis, M.D., a cardiologist, goes even further, stating in his introduction that he "will make the case that the world's most popular grain is also the world's most destructive dietary ingredient." The books blame wheat for a laundry list of ailments: irritable bowel syndrome, an increased risk for breast cancer, weakened bones, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, depression, migraines, premature aging, schizophrenia, epilepsy, Tourette's syndrome, memory problems, anxiety and insomnia. On top of all that? Wheat supposedly makes you fat.

As a journalist who's spent the past three years writing a book about America's obsession with vitamins, I was tempted to brush off the entire movement as a fad, the latest in our endless quest to find a single culprit for all our health and weight woes. But then I encountered people like Pai, who don't have a specific medical diagnosis yet really do feel better when they avoid wheat and gluten. What is it about wheat that could be causing their problems—and could it affect the rest of us? I wanted a science-based answer to a self-interested question: Is the baguette in that restaurant bread basket a delicious treat? Or a serious health threat?

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